An astronaut is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists.
Aleksandr "Sasha" Yuriyevich Kaleri is a former Russian cosmonaut and veteran of extended stays on the Mir Space Station and the International Space Station (ISS). Kaleri has most recently been in space in 2010 and 2011 aboard the ISS serving as a flight engineer for the long duration Expedition 25/26 missions. He has spent the fourth-longest time in space of any person, and the longest time in space of any person not born in what is now Russia.
Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev is a Russian mechanical engineer, former cosmonaut and former head of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
Anatoly Yakovlevich Solovyev is a retired Russian and Soviet cosmonaut and pilot. Solovyev was born on January 16, 1948, in Riga, Latvia. Solovyev holds the world record on the number of spacewalks performed (16), and accumulated time spent spacewalking.
Michel Ange-Charles Tognini is a French test pilot, engineer, brigadier general in the French Air Force, and a former CNES and ESA astronaut who served from 1 January 2005 to 1 November 2011 as head of the European Astronaut Centre of the European Space Agency. A veteran of two space flights, Tognini has logged a total of 19 days in space. Tognini has 4000 flight hours on 80 types of aircraft. He is fluent in English and Russian.
Anatoly Pavlovich Artsebarsky is a former Soviet cosmonaut.
Soyuz T-6 was a human spaceflight to Earth orbit to the Salyut 7 space station in 1982. Along with two Soviet cosmonauts, the crew included a Frenchman, Jean-Loup Chrétien.
Soyuz TM-12 was the 12th expedition to Mir, and included the first Briton in space, Helen Sharman.
Soyuz TM-13 was the 13th expedition to the Mir space station. Lasting from October 1991 to March 1992, the mission included cosmonauts from Austria and the soon-to-be independent region of Kazakhstan, as the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. The launch ceremony at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakh SSR was attended by the Soviet Premier Ivan Silaev, the President of the Kazakh SSR Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the Chancellor of Austria Franz Vranitzky. Before the launch, for the first time, President Nazarbayev received the launch report from cosmonaut Tokhtar Aubakirov in the Kazakh language.
Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov was a Soviet and Russian cosmonaut. He is the record holder for the longest single stay in space, staying aboard the Mir space station for more than 14 months during one trip. His combined space experience was more than 22 months.
Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC is a British chemist and cosmonaut who became the first British person, first Western European woman and first privately funded woman in space, as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station, in May 1991.
The German astronaut team was established in 1987. Before the establishment of the team, then-West German astronauts were selected for single missions, or as part of the European Space Agency's crewed spaceflight activities. East Germany had its first cosmonaut, Sigmund Jähn; Jähn was both West and East Germany's first citizen in space when he departed from Baikonur in the Soviet Union in August and returned to Earth in September 1978. West and East Germany reunified in 1990 and the astronaut team became representative of a single German nation.
Arne Christer Fuglesang is a Swedish physicist and an ESA astronaut. He was first launched aboard the STS-116 Space Shuttle mission on 10 December 2006, making him the first Swedish citizen in space.
The European Astronaut Corps is a unit of the European Space Agency (ESA) that selects, trains, and provides astronauts as crew members on U.S. and Russian space missions. The corps has 13 active members, able to serve on the International Space Station (ISS). The European Astronaut Corps is based at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. They can be assigned to various projects both in Europe or elsewhere in the world, at NASA Johnson Space Center or Star City.
The British space programme is the British government's work to develop British space capabilities. The objectives of the current civil programme are to "win sustainable economic growth, secure new scientific knowledge and provide benefits to all citizens."
Spaceflight participant is the term used by NASA, Roscosmos, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for people who travel into space, but are not professional astronauts.
Major Timothy "Tim" Nigel Peake is a British author, Army Air Corps officer and European Space Agency astronaut.
Jean-Loup Jacques Marie Chrétien is a French retired Général de Brigade in the Armée de l'Air, and a former CNES spationaut. He flew on two Franco-Soviet space missions and a NASA Space Shuttle mission. Chrétien was the first Frenchman and the first western European in space.
Mir EO-8 was the eighth crewed expedition to the space station Mir, lasting from December 1990 to May 1991. The crew, consisting of Russian cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Musa Manarov, launched along with space journalist Toyohiro Akiyama on December 2, 1990 aboard Soyuz TM-11. Akiyama returned aboard Soyuz TM-10 with the outgoing Mir EO-7 crew on December 10. Afanasyev and Manarov returned aboard Soyuz TM-11 on May 26, 1991.
